Cost of Waiting Survey finds that the hours wasted while waiting for deliveries or in-home services really add up — for both customers and companies.

Hours spent waiting for the cable guy or a grocery delivery are costing consumers billions of dollars a year, a survey of four countries has found.

Fifty-eight per cent of Americans reported waiting for a home delivery or service call in the past year, with an average wait of more than four hours. That wasted time translated into a yearly loss of $250 per person, or a nationwide impact of $37.7 billion.

The third annual Cost of Waiting Survey, by polling firm Zogby International, canvassed Americans, Britons, Brazilians and Germans about the infuriating delays they faced. The economic impact was measured using the value respondents placed on an hour of their time (Americans valued it more highly than others).

Respondents said they waited far longer than expected — an extra two and a half hours, in the case of Americans — for someone to show up. Many reported lost wages, or said they used sick days and vacation time to accommodate service calls.

The cost to companies that left customers fuming was dramatic, too. American companies sacrificed $330 a year for every customer lost because of a frustratingly long wait.

Cable and satellite TV technicians kept Americans waiting the longest. In Britain, it was online grocery delivery. In Germany, phone repair caused the longest delays, and in Brazil, it was Internet service calls.

Customers’ fuses are getting shorter as well.

In Germany, waits for home services dragged on an hour longer than in 2010, the survey said. A third of Germans gave up a vacation day to sit at home waiting; about the same number cancelled or rescheduled personal plans.

Germans waited an average of six hours; for Brazilians the average was five hours and for Britons, four.

While 70 per cent of Americans would recommend a company solely because a technician came on time, that figure drops by 43 per cent if the service is 15 minutes late. In the U.K, only 11 per cent would recommend a company that was 30 minutes late.

Brazilians are the least likely to post complaints online after an hour of waiting; elsewhere, social media are giving irate customers a quick outlet for venting their frustration, sometimes after just half an hour.

As anger mounts, so does action, the survey found. Nearly 40 per cent of Brazilians left home in frustration, 22 per cent refused the service and 36 per cent rescheduled an appointment.

Half of Britons and Germans who were forced to wait switched their service providers, while 38 per cent of people in the U.K. cancelled or refused a service.

In all four countries, most people said service companies made them wait because they didn’t value customers’ time or simply because they could get away with it.

In the U.S. and Brazil, grocery delivery drew the highest on-time satisfaction rating.

The survey was paid for by TOA Technologies, which makes appointment scheduling software.